Today we honor the life of St. Francis of Assisi. Francis is one of the most popular and admired saints of all time. Most of us know the highlights of his story: born the son of a wealthy man in 1182; had a conversion experience and devoted his life to Lady Poverty; shaped monastic and lay devotion; was a friend to all God’s creatures – being known to have preached to the birds. But the story I like most is the story about St. Francis and the Wolf.

According to legend, there was a wolf that was terrorizing a nearby town, killing and eating animals and people. The villagers tried to fight back, but they too died at the jaws of the wolf. Francis had pity on the people and went out to meet the wolf. When Francis found the wolf, he made the sign of the cross, and said, “Come to me, Brother Wolf. In the name of Christ, I order you not to hurt anyone.” The wolf calmly laid down at Francis’ feet. Francis then went on to explain to the wolf how the wolf was terrorizing the people and other animals – all who were made in the image of God. The wolf and Francis then made a pact that the wolf would no longer harm the town and the town would no longer try to hurt the wolf. The two traveled into town to explain the pact they had formed. The people were amazed as Francis and the wolf walked side-by-side into town. Francis made the people pledge to feed the wolf and the wolf pledge not to harm anyone else. From that day on, the wolf went door to door for food. The wolf hurt no one and no one hurt the wolf; even the dogs did not bark at the wolf.[i]

What I love about this story of St. Francis is that the story is about reconciliation and relationship. At the beginning of the story the town and the wolf are at an impasse – the wolf is hungry and getting attacked; the people are afraid and are lashing out. What Francis does for both parties is shock them out of the comfortable. For the wolf, no one has addressed the wolf kindly – they have either shut the wolf out or actively tried to kill the wolf. For the people, the wolf has not asked for help – he has simply and violently taken what he needed and wanted. Francis manages to shock the wolf first – not through violence or force, but with the power of love and blessing. By giving a blessing in the name of God, Francis is then able to implore the wolf to reciprocate with love. Francis also manages to shock the village – not with a violent victory, but with a humble display of forgiveness and trust. By walking into town with a tamed wolf at his side, Francis is able to encourage the town to embrace, forgive, and care for the wolf. Francis’ actions remind both parties that unless their relationships are reconciled, unrest and division will be the norm.

The funny thing about this story is that the story is pretty ridiculous. I mean, how many of us go around talking to wild animals, blessing them with the sign of the cross, expecting anything other than being attacked? We will never really know whether the story is true. But like any good Biblical story, or even any good midrash, whether the story is true is hardly the point: the point is that the stories point toward “Truth” with a capital “T.” What this story teaches is that peace and reconciliation only happen through meeting others where they are. We cannot expect great change unless we are willing to get down in the trenches – to go out and meet that destructive wolf face-to-face. The other thing this story teaches is relationships are at the heart of reconciliation. Only when the wolf and the town began to get to know each other and began to form a relationship with one another could they move forward.

This is the way life is under Jesus Christ. In our gospel lesson today, Jesus says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Jesus’ words have layered meaning. The first meaning we all catch is that Jesus offers us rest and refreshment. Jesus encourages us to come to him, to cast our burdens and cares upon him, and to take rest, to take Sabbath in Christ. Our souls will find peace in Christ Jesus. The second meaning is that peace in Christ Jesus is not without work. Jesus does not say come unto me and relax forever in happy retirement. Jesus says we will still have to take on a yoke – the burden of disciple living. But luckily, that burden of being Christ’s disciple will not be burdensome – it will be light. Finally, not only will Jesus make the workload “light,” as in not heavy: Jesus will also make us “light” – as in lights that shine into the darkness and refuse to allow the shadow to overwhelm[ii]; as in lights that shine on this very Holy Hill where Hickory Neck rests. We become the light when we work for reconciliation in our relationships with others.

That is why we do so many special things today. Today, we ask for prayers and then exchange signs of peace – that God might help us reconcile the relationships in our life that need healing. Today, at our 9:00 am service, we ask for blessing on our animals – that God might help our relationship with our pet be one of blessing and light. Today, we come to Jesus for Sabbath rest – that God might renew us on this Sabbath day, use the rest to fill us with light, and renew our commitment to be agents of reconciliation, gladly putting on Christ’s yoke. Amen.

Jesus’ words today from John’s gospel have been beckoning me all week. “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love…I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete…You are my friends…You did not choose me but I chose you.” These are words that our weary souls need to hear. We long for the wide, open embrace of God, the unconditional acceptance, the assurance that everything will be okay. Jesus’ words today are a warm blanket we crawl into and wrap around ourselves, draping over our feelings of sadness, loneliness, doubt, insecurity, and uncertainty. Jesus’ invitation to abide in his love is the fulfillment of every longing, aching need in our lives, and today Jesus offers that love freely, abundantly, joyfully, completely.

For some of here today, that is your sermon: Jesus loves you, chooses you, befriends you, and completes your joy. The humbling, overwhelming love of God invites you into that warm blanket, and you do not need to speak – just accept the gift and abide with God this week.[i]

For others of us, we may be a little too hardened to fully receive the invitation to abide in God’s love. I used to serve with a priest whose main sermon, no matter what the text, was God loves us. She said those words so often I remember I would sometimes stop listening. My cynical self would start the diatribe, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. God is love.” The problem for many of us is love has failed us. We have been in love, been loved by family or friends, or even have felt God’s love. But we have also been hurt, rejected, or felt abandoned by all those parties. And if we feel the failure of love too often, “Abide in my love,” sounds too shallow to have meaning, too romantic to last, too wonderful to be sustained.

For those of us who might roll our eyes at the saccharine nature of love we have experienced in the world, we may need a different sermon today. Part of our challenge is we have defined love in such a way that we will be disappointed every time. We watch movies, read books, even gaze at couples in those first dreamy weeks of new love, and think we know what love is. Love becomes two people who agree all the time, who are always able to look lovingly at another never noticing imperfections, who never experience conflict, and who are always happy. And if that is our expectation of love, we will always be disappointed. For those of us in this camp, our sermon today is to redefine love.

A few years ago, Paul and Lucy were such a couple. They had a romantic beginning – meeting in medical school, Paul was funny, smart, and playful. As they built a life together, they began to dream and to plan. When Paul finished his 90-hour workweek rotations, and life got back to normal, they would try to have a baby. Everything was perfect – at least everything was perfect if you did not look too closely. And then Paul got the diagnosis – a cancer that would give him two more years of life. And suddenly everything changed. Lucy’s life began to become about taking care of Paul, walking him through treatments, holding him in pain. And Paul’s life became about making sure Lucy could enjoy life beyond him. At one point, Paul assured Lucy he wanted her to remarry after he died. The two even agreed to have that baby they had been planning. Lucy worried having a child would make dying worse for Paul. “Don’t you think that saying goodbye to a child would make your death more painful?” she asked Paul. He replied, “Wouldn’t it be great if it did?”[ii]

What Paul and Lucy show us is love is not some sappy, sentimentalized emotion best captured by a romantic comedy with a great soundtrack. Love is beautiful not because love is perfect, pretty, polished. Love is beautiful because love is “all in,” ready for the ugliness of life, willing to take on pain and suffering and see that pain as a blessing. Of course, Jesus describes love in the same way in today’s gospel lesson if we are paying attention. We find ourselves so tarrying in the comforting love language and we sometimes miss the other love language in the text. “Keep my commandments…love one another as I have loved you…lay down one’s life for one’s friends…go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” Jesus shows us what love looks like throughout his life. He kneels down and tenderly washes the dirty, worn feet of his companions. He accepts and welcomes adulterers, oppressors, and outcasts of every kind. He loves and forgives, even when betrayed by his closest friends. He gives up his life in the most gruesome, humiliating way. Jesus’ love is not pretty or polished. But Jesus’ love is profound.

That kind of love is the kind of love that drove most of us to Hickory Neck. Maybe we came thinking we wanted a perfect, polished, pretty loving community that would make us feel loved too. And many times, Hickory Neck is just that. But other times we find a different kind of love at Hickory Neck – a love that stands by us when spouses die, when marriages fail, and when children stumble into dark places; a love that stands by us when diagnoses come, when tragedy strikes, and when sinfulness overcomes us; a love that stands by us when we disagree, when we hurt one another, and when we fail to meet each other’s expectations. That kind of love sits next to us when we cry, even when no words are exchanged; that kind of love receives awful news and is able to simply say, “this is awful,”; that kind of love prays for us even when we do not realize we are receiving or need prayer. The love we often find at Hickory Neck may seem to others to be messy, imperfect, and even difficult. But the love we find at Hickory Neck is much more akin to the kind of love that mimics God’s love for us, that lays down our lives for one another.

The challenge for us today is in four tiny words from Jesus, “Go and bear fruit.” Both the unconditional blanket of Christ’s love and the messy, ugly, beautiful love of Christ are for us today. But that gift of love becomes fullest when shared. We practice that sharing of love every week here at Hickory Neck – with the people we like, and even the people we may not like as much. But our practicing is preparation for sharing that love beyond these walls – with the family member who drives us crazy, with the neighbor whose annoying habits reveal a lack of love, with the stranger who makes us uncomfortable. Now, you may go home today and start thinking to yourself, or your friend might say to you, or even Satan himself may start asking you, “Yeah, but won’t that kind of love hurt? Won’t you be risking pain and hurt by giving that kind of love?” Today, Jesus invites you to say, “Wouldn’t it be great if it did?” Amen.

One of the themes of this summer for me has been new adventures. This summer I tried aerial yoga for the first time – a practice of yoga that involves being suspended from the ceiling with silks. I also rode a bike for the first time in over 20 years. And last night, for the first time ever, I represented our church by throwing one of the first pitches at our local minor league baseball games. In each of those instances, I was nervous, skeptical, or downright scared. I know I yelped at least once in aerial yoga. When I first started riding the bike, I was so stressed out that my hands started hurting from gripping the handlebars. And as I waited to throw that first pitch, my stomach was doing flip-flops.

Those examples may not sound all that thrilling to you. I certainly did not skydive, bungee jump, or walk a tightrope. But those adventures were all experiences I normally would have declined – coming up with a hundred reasons why the adventures would be a bad idea: pulled muscles, skinned knees, or a bruised ego. But in each instance, I could see in the eyes of the people asking me to take the adventure a sense of longing, hopefulness, vulnerability. They were inviting me into adventure, and saying “no” would have meant a crushed spirit of enthusiasm. And so, against my better judgment, I said “yes.” And you know what? In every instance I had a ton of fun!

I was thinking this morning about that weighty pause when someone invites you into adventure – when you can either say “yes” or “no,” with the person left eagerly anticipating your response. I think we experience that same weighty pause with God all the time. God is constantly inviting us to take on new adventures: stepping through the church doors for the first time in a long time, hoping not to be judged or hurt; going to a church study group, unsure about how your doubts or questions may be received; serving dinner at the homeless ministry, wondering what you can possibly say to or have in common with someone who lives on the streets. If you do not have a relationship with Christ, saying “yes” can be hard. But even when you do have a relationship with Christ, responding positively to an invitation from God can be hard. Taking on new adventures with God means trusting, letting go of fear, and making yourself vulnerable.

I wonder what invitations to adventure God has been inviting you to try this week. What invitation might you say “yes” to that you have been delaying or refusing altogether? The risk is that you might pull some muscles, skin some knees, or bruise that old ego. But the payoff is that you might find meaning, purpose, and renewed relationship with God. And I suspect that you might also have a bit of fun!

As a mother of two girls, I have regularly followed articles and advice columns about “mean girls.” I avoided meanness like the plague as a child – not necessarily because I was more moral than other kids. In fact, my avoidance of meanness was more about self-preservation. I figured if I was never mean to others, then I reduced the risk of someone being mean to me.

Having stayed under the radar, I realize there is a world of “mean girls” that I totally missed. And I have been surprised at how early some of those tendencies arise in my daughter and her classmates. There is constant chatter about who is or is no longer one’s best friend. I am constantly hearing about hurt feelings, someone being mean, or, through inference, hearing when my own daughter seems to be the victim or perpetrator of meanness. Though I realize we are not even close to the tween and teen years, I see the hints of what is to come.

But last week, I was the chaperone for my daughter’s field trip. I wondered whether I would see any of that behavior in real time (not just through the stories relayed at bedtime or at the dinner table). My observations did not lead to any conclusions about my daughter’s experiences. But what I did see were a bunch of kids who were thrilled to have some attention and affection. I did not really do much. I deployed my typical distraction technique of asking lots of questions of the kids. And before I knew it, I never had an empty hand. Kids I had never met before wanted to hold my hand and be near me.

As we rode the bus back, my heart was full of sympathy for all the kids. Though I know they all hurt each other with insults and teasing, at the heart of matter, they are all children of God, who like all of us, long for love. What made me so grateful about the trip was these kids who sometimes say and do mean things are also kids trying to navigate social systems, kids trying to be tough, and kids who need love. And if all that is true about kids, how much more so about all of us adults? This week, I invite you to see those around you with the eyes of compassion – the same eyes with which God sees you.

One of the side bonuses of being a parent of small children is that you have to step up your silliness game. In general, I am not what most people would call being adept at being silly – I tend to err on the side of being serious and thoughtful. I am not sure when the loss of silliness happened, but I imagine the loss began as I matured into adulthood. Even scripture seems to condone this putting away of silliness. First Corinthians says, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.”[i] Most of us embrace the mantra of putting aside childish ways when we mature – except perhaps when we are in the presence of a child. I learned pretty quickly that harnessing silliness could garner me much parenting success. Nothing deflates a temper tantrum like a silly face contest. Nothing distracts a fussy baby like silly noises. And nothing makes a car of children happier than a parent grooving out to a favorite song on the radio while driving. Sure, the drivers on either side of the car will look at you like you are crazy – and if you think about them too much, you’ll become too self-conscious to keep up your silly dancing. But if you can block them out, and dance with abandon, the joy in the car multiplies – and the whole car shakes as you and the children dance in your seats.

Restraint is a value for most of us. Most of the time, dancing while driving is not really appropriate. Instead we should be calmly and intently focused on driving. Most of the time, we expect a certain amount of decorum while working. The expectations around attire, behavior, and language are quite different at work than they are at home. And most of the time, we expect a significant amount of restraint from those attending church, especially as Episcopalians. Though we encourage people to come as they are, there are still certain garments that would raise eyebrows if you wore them to church. Though we say “Amen,” throughout our services, we have designated times for those amens, and many of us tense up when someone says a spontaneous “Amen.” Though we often sing songs of praise in church, many of us get uncomfortable if someone embodies that praise, either through clapping, raising their hands, or, heaven-forbid, dancing.

And yet, that is exactly where we find David today in our Old Testament lesson – exuberantly, and without many clothes, dancing before the ark of the Lord. Before we can understand why David’s actions are so outlandish, we need to understand the fullness of this story. If you recall, we have been tracking David’s story this summer. We have seen him from his earliest days, when Samuel anoints him after calling him in from the shepherd’s fields; to his daring battle as a boy with the giant Goliath; to his tenuous relationship with Saul and Saul’s children – who seemed to both love David and fear the threat of David at the same time; to the ultimate demise and death of Saul and Jonathan; and to today’s reading, where David is establishing his rule of the people by bringing the ark of the Lord into the city of Jerusalem – the city of David. If you remember, the ark of the Lord is known as the container of God’s presence among the people. They built the ark back in Moses’ day, and most recently, the ark had been stolen by the Philistines. David retrieves the ark so that the ark can be brought back in the center of the people, marking how David’s rule and God’s presence and favor are tied.[ii] David’s favor with God leads David to begin his dancing journey of celebration to Jerusalem.

Now lest we think that dancing before the ark is totally normal in those days, we encounter a strange comment by David’s wife, Michal. The text says, “As the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal daughter of Saul looked out of the window, and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart.”[iii] You almost miss the line in the long text, but that is partially because we do not get the rest of the story today. In the verses following what we hear today, David and Michal have a heated conversation about the inappropriateness of a king dancing nearly naked before the common people. In the end, the text says that Michal never bears a child to David, as if suggesting that she is in the wrong for judging David.

But here this is where I am intrigued. You see, Michal was the daughter of Saul and the sister of Jonathan, both of whom are now dead. There is some debate about why Michal despises David,[iv] but I think we must remember that Michal is mourning. In theory, this is a day for joy, since Michal’s husband is now king. But Michal has every right to be mourning. That line, “and she despised him in her heart,” though sharp and jarring, is not unfamiliar to me when I really think about her reaction.

One of the realities of the advent of social media is how quickly news travels. If you follow social media, you are bombarded with news. Normally, this is a good thing, because social media allows us to stay in touch with the highlights of friends’ lives from around the world. Where social media becomes a challenge is when someone is struggling. I have many friends who have struggled with infertility. Nothing is worse for someone struggling with infertility than to watch a news feed of friend after friend getting pregnant. They post the coveted ultrasound picture of a baby. There are endless congratulations, and follow-up baby-bump pictures. Everyone is full of joy, except for the person who wants that reality and cannot have it. Every pregnancy announcement feels like another painful reminder of how you cannot seem to become pregnant. The same is true about jobs or college acceptances. The social media community seems adept at celebrating the good, but really struggles with recognizing those who mourn while we simultaneously rejoice. We prefer to dance instead and forget the bad stuff.

We struggle with that reality in the context of church too. On our healing prayer Sundays I am acutely aware of that reality. Though each Sunday is meant to be an Easter celebration, once a month we try to remember how Sunday does not always feel like a celebration. There are parts of our lives that are not whole or healed. There are times when we still mourn or long for something else. There are times when we are just not in the mood to dance, and would much rather have people sit with us in our discomfort than for them to be dancing around praising a God who quite frankly may seem absent, neglectful, or downright mean.[v]

I think that is why I love this story from Second Samuel so much. When we read about David, we long to be like David – unfettered, totally unself-conscious, and full of joy. We want to be a people of gratitude, celebration, and praise. But sometimes, we are more like Michal. We are not ready for joy, we are not ready for celebration, and we not ready to praise God yet. And quite frankly, having someone in our face doing just that – or worse, telling us to get over ourselves and start dancing makes us despise them in our hearts too. But that is what I love about this story. Michal was not edited out of the story. This is not a simple story about how we should always praise God. This is a complex story about how freeing and life-giving praising God can be. In fact, the joy we get from God can make us dance with abandon, totally liberated from what is socially acceptable. But, there are also times when we are just not there – and the command to make a joyful noise makes us more angry than willing to yield. And that’s okay. Things may not turn out how we want them. We may need to mourn that reality for a long time. In this complex reality, the Church stands in solidarity with us all, celebrating what can be celebrated, giving space for hurt and mourning where needed. We are a community of both Davids and Michals. And sometimes we identify with one more than the other. To us all, the Church offers a humble meal, reminding us that there is room for all at God’s table. Amen.

This week has been a bit rough. We started the week talking about Ray Rice and the NFL’s handling of the physical abuse of Rice’s then-fiancée. The incident raised all sorts of questions about domestic violence: how genuine the NFL’s stance on domestic violence is, why people stay in abusive relationships, and what domestic violence really looks like. And then, just days later, we honored the anniversary of September 11th. We made space for those who are still mourning deaths, we remembered our own experiences of that day, and we reflected on how much our world has changed in the shadow of that event.

Needless to say, when pondering the horrors of domestic violence and terrorism, the absolute last thing I wanted to do this week was to pray on our gospel lesson from Matthew. The scene is familiar. Jesus has just told the disciples about how to resolve conflict within the community of faith, and Peter appears with a question. “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” In other words, Peter basically comes to Jesus asking the question that we all want ask, “Okay, so I know you want us to be a community that honors God, even when we fight. But how many times, exactly, do we really have to forgive someone? I mean, surely there are limits to how many times we have to keep forgiving someone?” I give Peter credit. Peter manages to come off sounding pretty generous. I mean, how many of us would propose forgiving someone seven times before cutting them off completely? Instead, our most common colloquialism is “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” In our culture, we will forgive someone once and clear the slate. But if people cross us twice, we believe we would be foolish to stay in a relationship with them because they have proven that they cannot be trusted.

But Jesus does not concede to our modern sensibilities about forgiveness. Jesus’ response to Peter is shocking, “Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times.” Now seventy-seven times is way more leeway with which most of us feels comfortable. And that is not even taking into account that some translations translate Jesus’ instructions not as seventy-seven times but seventy times seven.[i] Regardless, the point is that Jesus is basically saying that there is not true end to forgiveness. “There can be no limit on forgiveness, because [forgiveness] is a never-ending practice that is essential to the life of the church.”[ii]

What ultimately makes us feel uncomfortable about Jesus’ words is that when we begin to talk about forgiveness, most of us have some pretty distorted beliefs about forgiveness. Some of us believe that forgiveness means excusing or overlooking the harm that has been done to us and saying that everything is okay. For those who hold that belief, forgiveness can be equated with stuffing our feelings down deep inside or downright lying in order to keep the peace. Others of us believe that forgiveness means allowing those who have hurt us to persist in their behavior. For those who hold this belief, forgiveness is so important, that we become recurring victims of offenses. Still others believe that forgiving means forgetting what happened. For those who hold this belief, forgiveness is pretending an old hurt does not still hurt. Finally, others see forgiveness as something that we can do at will, and always all at once. For those who hold this belief, forgiveness must be immediate and offered quickly. The problem with all these models of forgiveness – of overlooking the harm, saying everything is okay, of allowing recurring behavior, of trying to forget, or forgiving once and for all – is that these models of forgiveness fall apart when we run into extreme situations like the ones from this week with Ray Rice or September 11th.

The tremendously good news this week is that all of these understandings about forgiveness would have been foreign to Jesus. I was reading one of my favorite authors this week on her thoughts about forgiveness. Jan Richardson says of forgiveness, “The heart of forgiveness is not to be found in excusing harm or allowing [the harm] to go unchecked. [Forgiveness] is to be found, rather, in choosing to say that although our wounds will change us, we will not allow them to forever define us. Forgiveness does not ask us to forget the wrong done to us but instead to resist the ways [the wrong] seeks to get its poisonous hooks in us. Forgiveness asks us to acknowledge and reckon with the damage so that we will not live forever in [the damage’s] grip.”[iii]

That is why Jesus tells the hyperbolic parable about the servant and the forgiving king. The forgiveness by the king of ten thousand talents (or the equivalent of 150,000 years of labor)[iv] is almost ludicrous in its generosity. The servant would never have been able to pay that amount back. But then again, the forgiveness we receive from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is also ludicrous – ludicrously abundant, underserved, and more than we could ever earn. And yet, the times we struggle to forgive will be like when the unforgiving servant cannot forgive the hundred denarii owed by another servant (or the equivalent of a hundred days of labor) – a much less egregious amount to owe. In order to be a people who live under Jesus’ excessive forgiveness, we must be a people who are also willing to work on the art of forgiveness. But we do not do that work out of obligation – instead we do that work as a gift to ourselves.

There once was a woman who went to see her Rabbi. The woman was a divorced single mom who was working to support herself and her three children. She explained to the Rabbi that since her husband walked out on them, every month she struggled to pay the bills. Though she and the kids could not afford everyday treats like going to the movies, her ex-husband was living it up with his new wife. The Rabbi suggested that the woman forgive her ex-husband and she was indignant. “How can you tell me to forgive him,” she demanded. The Rabbi responded, “I’m not asking you to forgive him because what he did was acceptable. What he did was not acceptable – it was mean and selfish. I am asking you to forgive him because he does not deserve the power to live in your head and turn you into a bitter angry woman. I would like to see him out of your life emotionally as completely as he is out of your life physically, but you keep holding on to him. Know this: you are not hurting him by holding on to that resentment. You are only hurting yourself.”[v]

Jesus does not propose that we forgive seventy-seven or seventy times seven times because Jesus is a sadist. Jesus knows forgiving is hard. But Jesus also knows that the worst part about forgiveness is not that the work is hard. The worst part about forgiveness is that when we do not forgive, we only hurt ourselves. And Jesus does not want us to be locked in a prison of resentment and anger. Jesus wants us to be free. One of the reasons Jesus asks us to forgive so many times is because Jesus knows this work does not happen overnight. Forgiveness is not a once-and-for-all event. Forgiveness requires us to keep going, to keep trying, because only in the practice of trying – in fact trying until our earthly lives are over – will we ever come close to the profound forgiveness that we receive through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus our Lord. Our work on mastering the art of forgiveness is not a gift that we give to others. Our work on mastering the art of forgiveness is the gift that we give to ourselves. We work on the art of forgiveness because we are working on loving ourselves as much as Jesus loves us. Amen.

This coming Sunday is what we call “Welcome Back Sunday,” at St. Margaret’s. The Welcome Back is not meant to acknowledge that parishioners have been away all summer, despite the fact that I have heard anecdotally that Robin Williams once said that Episcopalians are the only people God trusts enough to take the summers off from Church. No, Welcome Back Sunday is a time that we are welcomed back to the program year and all the fullness that the program year offers. For us, Welcome Back Sunday means returning from one Sunday service to two services, the return of educational and formation opportunities, more fellowship activities, and generally more life and energy around the church.

To prepare for Welcome Back Sunday, invitations have been sent out to our neighbors, our website has been redesigned, a welcome breakfast has been planned, a full line-up for the fall is all set, and in general we are hyping up parishioners to get back into the swing of the program year. We have been sharing videos about Welcome Back Sunday – my personal favorite being this one. But despite the fact that I am energized and excited about what this program year has to offer, I am aware that for many, Church is still an experience that many keep at arm’s length. Perhaps you never grew up in a church setting, perhaps you began to feel unwelcome in church, or maybe the Church has actively hurt or disenfranchised you. Whatever the reason, for many Church is seen as an irrelevant experience to your everyday lives.

For those who have been hurt, I completely understand why you keep your distance. Having been severely judged by someone who claimed to love the Lord, I understand why you would keep up your guard and be suspicious of any church enthusiasts like myself. But I must say, there is a part of me that aches to share the joy, love, and sense of wholeness I have found through the Church. Yes, the Church is flawed, and full of sinful people, but at its very best, the Church is a place where people can vulnerably step forward with their struggles with God and be invited along a spiritual journey in the context of a community of seekers. I think that is why my heart aches when I hear songs like Macklemore’s “Same Love.” In it, he sings about the ways that Church has deeply wounded our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. His words make me want cry out to the world that the Church has another way of being too – a way of love.

So this week, if you find yourself without a Church home, without a place to ask the hard questions about God, or without a community who lets you be you in the journey, come to Church. If you are in Plainview, I hope that Church will be St. Margaret’s. But if not, I hope you will look for a Church that lives into what Jesus dreamed of for the Church – a community of faith living the way of love. Whether it has been a week since you have been to church, years, or you have never been to church, I say to you, “Welcome Back.”